Lawn mowers are well known devices for cutting grass and the like. Typically, most lawn mowers intended for home use have a housing that includes an annular or doughnut shaped cutting chamber having a top wall and a curved sidewall. A substantially horizontal cutting blade is located within the cutting chamber and rotates about a vertical axis to cut grass in a substantially horizontal cutting plane. The grass clippings created by the action of the blade are circulated around inside the cutting chamber confined by the various walls of the cutting chamber.
The grass clippings are allowed to leave the cutting chamber of the mower in various ways. One well known way is to provide a side discharge opening in a sidewall of the mower between the front and rear wheels thereof. When the side discharge opening is open, grass clippings circulating in the cutting chamber will exit through the side discharge opening when the clippings reach such opening. Thus, the grass clippings are thrown to the side of the mower in a sideward and somewhat rearward direction.
In side discharge mowers of the type noted above, it is desirable that some type of chute be provided over or around the side discharge opening to protect the operator and bystanders from the stream of the grass clippings passing out of the side discharge opening and from any foreign objects carried in that grass stream. Various types of chutes are known that are attached to the lawn mower to be capable of covering or blocking the side discharge opening but that can be selectively deployed to open the side discharge opening with the chute then at least partially covering the side discharge opening. However, such known chutes have various disadvantages, such as lack of durability, complexity, and failure to direct the exiting stream of grass clippings in the most desirable manner. It would be an advance in the art to provide a side discharge chute that avoids such disadvantages.